How to Unlock Your Tight Quads and Back Muscles

Tight quadricep and back extensor musculature is often the result of heavy lifting or simply living a very active lifestyle.

Stretching these muscles individually won't really work because these muscles are also so closely tied into respiration. If the ribcage can't expand with air, and utilize the diaphragms for breathing, these muscles will remain tight. The back will stay tight because it will be used to bring air into the torso (because the diaphragms are out of commission). The quads will stay tight because of the anteriorly rotated position of the pelvis.

So a great way to truly stretch ("inhibit" is the better word) these commonly tight muscles is to position the body in a state of complete internal rotation and breathe in that position.

You can't expand a ribcage with inhalation unless your body is first in a state of internal rotation. In other words, you can't expand and already expanded body. People with tight quads and back extensors are chronically expanded, tight, hyperinflated, and tense. In order for their system to calm down and relax, learning to breathe in an internally rotated (flexed) state is necessary.